


To Forgive is Not to Forget

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Dreams, Family, Father & Daughter - Freeform, Forgetting, Forgiveness, Gen, Peace, Politics, Reconciliation, discussion of arranged marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-09 20:31:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15275613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Kalasin has forgiven but not forgotten her father dashing her dream of knighthood.





	To Forgive is Not to Forget

To Forgive is not to Forget

“Kalasin.” Papa never called Kalasin by her cheery childhood nickname–Kally with its simple, sharp charm–any more, not since he was the death of her dream of knighthood when he, reaching out to comfort her, had been met with her ice eyes. When he had frozen, seeming as stunned by her rejection as she had been by the revelation that despite his insistence that girls were equal to boys and could choose their destinies as much as a boy (only years later, did it occur to her that her father didn’t believe any of his children, boy or girl, should pick how they were educated or whom they were married, and she was the only one he had given any veto power, however limited to, when it came to her betrothal) could still believed that her only value and duty to the realm was in becoming a lady appealing for marriage to a foreign royal, she had spoken with a cold courtesy. Using perfect manners as a weapon and shield, a lesson ironically learned from years of watching Roald, who was allowed and even encouraged to train as a knight which might have provoked boiling envy in her if she didn’t love him more than she did her dream of knighthood, she had told her father that if he wished her to train as a lady, she would prefer he called her by her lady’s name, Kalasin. Since then, he had never forgotten to call her by her lady’s name, even if sometimes Kalasin wished that he would slip so they might at least pretend to the childhood familiarity they had enjoyed before he had dashed her dream. 

Expecting him to continue, Kalasin shifted her gaze from the ships with their billowing cotton cloud sails winding their way along the coast of King’s Reach, where Kalasin and her father sat on a terrace to bask in the sunshine and breathe in the briny breeze off the waves, to and from Portsmouth. She saw that there was more salt than pepper in his hair and that the strain of ruling showed in growing crow’s feet and new wrinkles around his mouth. When he didn’t add anything to her name, she lifted an eyebrow that was meticulously groomed because the Countess of King’s Reach was adamant about frequent plucking and asked, “Yes, Papa?” 

“I’m sorry, my dear.” Papa could have declared her illegitimate and Kalasin would have been less astonished. She couldn’t remember Papa ever apologizing to her, not even when he had persuaded her to surrender her wish to become a knight.

Before these shocking words had left his lips, Kalasin might have thought that she would have wanted to hear them. Instead, they felt as crushing a disappointment as when he had explained all the reasons reality and duty prevented her from training as a knight. In her father’s apology was the sound of a giant of her childhood collapsing into a pygmy. 

“For arranging my marriage to Emperor Kaddar?” Kalasin’s throat had gone dry as the sand in Carthak, and she sipped at her iced green tea–sweetened with honey and spiced with ginseng, a drink introduced and popularized by Shinko embraced even by stuffy conservatives who apparently preferred to be cooled rather than heated on sweltering summer days–to keep her voice from shaking as she went on. “He’s witty in his letters and his gifts are generous. Despite his occasional arrogance, I often find him charming.” 

Kalasin didn’t know if she and Emperor Kaddar would ever love each other as Roald and Shinko did, but Kalasin did believe that she could at least come to feel an affection for her intended. Emperor Kaddar promised her power and offered her the trappings of romance that could bloom into genuine passion. A woman couldn’t demand more from an arranged marriage. 

“Not for arranging your marriage to Emperor Kaddar. When you’re his empress, you could be the most powerful women in the world, and I won’t apologize for that.” Papa paused to trace the rim of his glass with a reflective finger. “I will apologize for discouraging your dream of knighthood. I know it broke something inside you when I did that, and I hope one day your heart might be healed enough to forgive me though I will understand if it never does.” 

Papa was pinching the bridge of his nose as he always did when he was weary. Kalasin hated to see him battered like a boulder beaten by centuries of tides by guilt for a crime he had committed against her long ago. 

“I forgive you, Papa.” She rose from her chair and threw her arms around her father, not caring if the wildness of the gesture would have earned her a stern scolding from the Countess of King’s Reach for its flagrant disregard of her father’s royal dignity nonetheless her own. Sometimes sincere comfort outweighed the superficiality of a regal bearing, no matter what the Countess of King’s Reach might have argued on the contrary. “I forgave you many years ago without you even asking. I’m your daughter, and that’s what daughters do: forgive their fathers without their fathers having to ask.”

Since she was consoling her father, she didn’t mention that to forgive was not to forget, and that she would never be able to forget the moment he had shattered her dream of knighthood even if she had come to accept and even embrace her undreamed for destiny as Carthak’s empress. She was grateful for her silence on that matter when Papa squeezed her hand beneath his own and murmured, “You’ll be happy then?” 

“I’ll always be happy, Papa.” Kalasin bent to brush her lips against his sun-kissed cheek, his warmth melting any coldness she might have once felt over his decision to discourage her quest for knighthood. It wasn’t the ignorant bliss of forgetfulness but it was the pervading peace of forgiveness that felt infinitely more important to her and, she sensed in her soul, her father. “Like you and Mama, I do my duty and make my own happiness.”


End file.
